A flying start!

James Pratt produces pedigree Holstein cattle at Studdah Farm, Leyburn and likes to get his calves off to a flying start. James began using Jameson IMMU-Surge calf milk replacer (CMR) at the start of this year and has been delighted with the results. James has a meticulous regime for his calves and his approach has paid dividends. Calves are given 4 litres of colostrum via a stomach tube within the first 6 hours after birth. Then four feeds of 2 litres of mother’s milk is fed before calves go onto calf milk replacer. Calves start on 500g of CMR and build up to 1000g. James uses a weigh band to assess performance and he finds calves double their weight by eight weeks of age. Calves are housed individually at first and then go into groups of five. Calves are weaned slowly over a long period of time and they are not moved during this time to avoid stress. James has found that calves are gaining more weight on our calf milk and he has no scour problems. James started using IMMU-Surge in January so it will be interesting to see heifer reared on this regime come into the herd – what a great start they’ve had!